The Fifth Day
by Kate Bing
Summary: It wasn't as if she hadn't expected this to happen after everything she'd done, but as they led her down through to the darkest depths, her skin still raw from the "baptism", Amelie couldn't help but wish that she had been given a little more time to tie off all of her loose ends. It's funny how that list of things to do seemed a lot longer now that there was no time left.
1. Chapter 1

-The First Day-

_It's dark. _That was what Amelie thought as the lift came to a gradual stop at her floor, her escorts pulling on her chains to get her moving. So this was Eternal Hell; the place where monsters were left to rot, hidden away from the rest of the world. There was little light to see by, but it was enough to make out the shadows of bodies behind the iron gates, the white stripes of their uniforms standing out against the darkness. Their eyes were fixed on the new arrival, everyone moving towards the front of their cages to get a better look at their new neighbour, and the entire place erupted once they realised it was a woman.  
There were a few vulgar comments thrown her way as she was guided passed the floor's inhabitants, the sight of a female all too rare in this place, especially one on their side. The shouts seemed to be coming from all around, as if she was surrounded by lecherous monkeys, but the further in she went the fewer the numbers and the quieter it became until she was stopped before a cell with only two occupants. They didn't speak a word but simply watched as she was shown inside and her hands and feet were chained to the wall behind her. The guards who had escorted her left without sparing her a second glance, leaving her to her fate, and now she could feel the eyes of her new companions upon her making her uncomfortably aware of how exposed she was. Even in the dim light Amelie could see the pink of her skin glowing bright against the dark of her clothes and she prayed that her new roommates either wouldn't notice or were polite enough not to make any remarks about it. She had suffered through the "baptism" with gritted teeth, not wanting to give the jailers the satisfaction of hearing her scream, but she could feel the tears rising from her chest and didn't trust that she could keep her voice steady enough to brush the experience off as nothing. She had to remain strong until the end if she was to face the world with a smile on her face. She would not let them break her.

"They didn't put you in the uniform either."  
Amelie started at the sound of someone speaking to her and pulled away from the sight of her skin to see the young, dark-haired man on the wall adjacent to hers looking at her, his defeated eyes still filled with tiny flecks of warmth. He was wearing a simple pair of black shorts, his torso left bare but for the red beads hanging round his neck, and she noted that the other prisoner was also without uniform. It was obvious that the three of them were special cases, not meant to be inside long enough to waste a uniform on, but she wasn't going to let herself dwell on such dark thoughts.  
"Probably realised I'd look too good in it for it to be a punishment." She forced out her reply with a smirk, trying to suppress the sudden, violent wave of tears bubbling up inside of her. They might have put her back in her own, dirty, ragged clothes, but Amelie didn't want to think about what had been taken away from her. She could feel the emptiness of her pockets and she knew that it was gone. They had taken from her the only item she had ever held dear and she would probably never see it again, not that she had need for it in prison. Here it would only serve to remind her of what she could never have.  
The dark-haired man didn't saying anything in response, but Amelie thought she saw a ghost of a smile on his lips. Perhaps if this had been under different circumstances he would have laughed and come back with something witty or sarcastic, but he knew that they both shared the same fate and he couldn't bring himself to do more than smile. _How sad, _Amelie thought. _How sad to see so strong a man look so utterly defeated._  
"So they finally caught you, Pirate Assassin." The prisoner chained to the opposite wall, a giant Fishman with piercing eyes, was the one who spoke next. He was watching her with caution as if she might attack at any second despite the shackles round her wrists and ankles.  
"I'm flattered that the great 'Sea Knight' Jinbe would know of a lowly assassin such as myself," Amelie responded in a mockingly humble tone, her lips curving into a smile as she fought another wave of tears. If she wasn't careful, this place was going to swallow her whole.  
"So you're Pirate Assassin Amelie."  
"The one and only," she said, still smiling. "It seems that I am more famous than I thought if both the Sea Knight _and_ Fire Fist Ace have heard of me." Of course, Amelie knew that with a bounty and reputation such as hers it would have been more strange if they _hadn't_ heard of her; there was a reason she was down in the darkest depths of Impel Down, but she wasn't one to let that go to her head. Even with her bounty, she knew that the two with whom she now shared a cell were even more famous than she, so much so that she could never come close to comparing.  
"It is wise to know your enemies, Miss Amelie, and you are the kind I hate the most," Jinbe said.  
"Why? Because I kill from the shadows?"  
"Because you kill without reason."  
"Orders from my Captain are reason enough for me."  
"And before that?"  
Amelie paused, the smile falling from her face as she held the gaze of the Sea Knight, his eyes still staring at her with such hostility as if he knew everything she'd done. But there was no way that was possible unless - unless he had been there. His eyes gave nothing away, they just continued to watch her, almost waiting for her to admit her crimes, but she would not be taken in. She wouldn't let this shake her. So what if he knew? There was nothing to do about it now since she had already been arrested.  
"It seems my past isn't as well hidden as I thought. I don't think I've ever met anyone on this big ol' sea who knew of me before my pirate days."  
"You're part of the Peg Leg Pirates, right?" Ace spoke up, raising his head to properly look at her. It seemed, she realised with relief, that he didn't know. To him, her story began with the Peg Legs and that was how it should be, although that story was fast coming to an end.  
"Have been for five years," she replied, forcing herself to meet his eyes, ignoring the sting of her own as the tears began forcing their way up. Her skin was still on fire, her pockets were still empty, and it seemed that she was still as worthless as she had been since the day she was born, everything her Captain had given her lost the moment she was caught. Up until that day that the Captain had taken her in, Amelie had been surviving simply because she hadn't wanted to give those that wished her dead the satisfaction of seeing the end of her life; she had survived because she was too stubborn to die. But the Captain had given her a purpose and, for the first time in her life, she had felt useful. Now that was all gone.

* * *

**Five years ago…**

"Hey Captain. The fellas say there's a rat down in the cargo hold. Do you want me to go sort it out?"  
"No. I'll take care of it."

Amelie clutched at the blood stained rag on her leg trying desperately to stop the bleeding, but to no avail. She reached out for the shirt of the body beside her, tearing another long strip that she tied around her thigh. She had removed the bullet from the wound, but that would mean nothing if she couldn't stop herself from bleeding to death, and those damn pirates hadn't helped any. If they had just turned around and pretended not to see she would have had herself fixed up and been gone by the time they reached the next island, but they just wouldn't leave. Now they were dead and she had only made her injury even worse by overexerting herself. She could feel her head growing lighter with every passing second and just when she felt close to passing out the door began to open and Amelie knew she was in trouble. This time they'd be here for her.

Romance T. Gilly stood in the doorway of the cargo hold not quite believing what he was seeing. Sitting at the back of the room, a gunshot wound in her leg and surrounded by the dead bodies of three of his men, was a young girl who could have been no older than 15, her entire body covered in blood. As he advanced towards her she simply watched him, a dagger held in her hand, her eyes those of an animal eyeing its enemy, though he could see that they were gradually losing focus. Despite this it seemed that she was still prepared to fight. This girl was either very brave, or very stupid. Either way, he liked the confidence in her eyes and, judging from the bodies around her, he knew that the dagger in her hand was more than just a toy; this girl knew how to kill and knew how to kill efficiently. Perhaps he could use someone like that on his crew.  
"What's yer name kid?"  
She continued to watch him, her eyes narrowed in suspicion as she tightened the grip on her dagger. "Amelie."  
"What do ya say t' becomin' a pirate, Amelie?"  
A pirate? Amelie had heard stories of the pirates that sailed the seas, living as they chose, travelling the world over in search of fame, fortune, and adventure. It wasn't the comfortable family life she had longed for, but it offered her the freedom she dreamed of and if it meant she could be of some use to someone then she wasn't about to turn it down.

It wasn't until Amelie had been with them for a couple of weeks that she fully started to settle down in her new life, though she still couldn't shake the nightmares that haunted her while she slept. Because of this she spent most of her nights out on the deck staring up at the sky. It was on such a night when the Captain first came to speak to her.  
"Can't sleep?"  
She heard the clunk of Captain Gilly's wooden leg move across the deck as he came to sit beside her, a tankard in his hand.  
"Just needed a bit of fresh her," was her reply, still staring up at the sky. "It's nice and peaceful out here."  
"Aye, that it is. I s'pose yer not used t' being around such rowdy people."  
"Not really. It's nice, though, even if they do always pick on me. I suppose I should expect that with being the youngest."  
"That jus' means they've accepted ya. Yer one o' the crew now."  
"One of the crew…" Amelie wasn't sure that the life of a pirate wholly suited her, but it seemed she'd finally found somewhere to belong and that was more than she could ever have hoped for.  
"So how old _are_ ya kid?"  
"15."  
He laughed. She liked that sound. Everyone on the ship was always laughing about something or other and it made her heavy heart feel just that little bit lighter. It was a nice change from what she was used to.  
"Is something funny?" She asked, wondering what she'd said to cause this outburst.  
"It's nothin'," Captain Gilly replied, still smiling. "I figured that's about how old ya were, but I'd kinda hoped ya just looked young for yer age. Pirates are s'posed t' be fierce and terrifyin', and 15 year old girls don't exactly fill people with fear. I'll be the laughin' stock o' the sea." Though he didn't seem to mind so much. He knew that, in the end, he'd be the one laughing.  
"I'll just have to show them that appearances aren't everything."  
"Aye. That ya will. That ya will."  
They fell into silence, both looking up at the night's sky, the stars twinkling brighter than Amelie had ever seen. She glanced across at the man beside her, wondering if this was what it felt like to have a father. Deep down in her heart she knew that a real father would never ask his daughter to kill for him, but for now she could fool herself into believing they had such a bond. For now she could pretend she had a family who cared.

* * *

**Present…**

"They say you're the reason the Peg Leg Pirates became so famous so suddenly."  
"I wouldn't know about that."  
"I'm sure there aren't many pirates who can say that their bounty is higher than their Captain's. Anyone would wonder why you stayed with him."  
"You flatter me, Ace. I'm only as good as my Captain allowed me to be," Amelie replied. "Although it seems I wasn't good enough."  
Ace could hear the smile in her voice as she tried to keep her tone light, but he saw something flash across her face as she spoke. It was only for a second, but there was no mistaking that look in her eyes because it was something that Ace knew all too well. It was a look he'd seen in his own eyes as a child. What he was looking at now, could this have been him if things had been different? He looked down at the pinkness of her skin still glowing through the dimness, knowing she must still be in pain from the "baptism", and he couldn't help but wonder just how much this woman was holding back. He looked over at Jinbe who still had his eyes on her, still watching her with mistrust and hostility. Ace knew of the things she'd done as a pirate. He knew of the fear she instilled in men twice her age at just the mention of her name, but it seemed that even before that Amelie had done some terrible things. Even so, Ace couldn't help the feeling growing inside of him that there was more to this woman than met the eye.

* * *

"Hey, Jinbe."  
The light never changed down in the deepest depths of Impel Down, but Ace knew it was well into the night outside and most of the prison's inmates were drifting off into a restless sleep, the new occupant in his cell doing the same despite her best efforts to stay awake. He was watching her sleeping face as he spoke, her features twisted in pain as her dreams tormented her.  
"Do you really think she's a bad person?"  
She was a murderer, that he knew. She had killed hundreds of people in cold blood because of her Captain, but was she really a bad person?  
The Fishman was silent for a few moments and Ace knew that he was watching the sleeping Assassin as he was.  
"I think society made her what she is," Jinbe eventually replied. He had seen what this girl was capable of first hand and at that time he had feared what she could become if she went by unchecked, but his business had been elsewhere and it was not for Fishmen to meddle in human affairs. Perhaps if he had stepped in then the Pirate Assassin of today wouldn't have existed, but it was too late for what ifs. She was sitting here before him and as he looked upon her face he couldn't help but think of Arlong, the brother he had lost to madness. Arlong had been very much the same; he had only turned out the way he had because of the society in which he had lived. That innocent little boy hadn't started out so bad.  
"But no, Ace, I don't think she's a bad person. I think she's just lost."


	2. Chapter 2

-The Second Day-

"So what happens for breakfast around here?"  
"We get fed when they feel like feeding us."  
"Seriously?"  
"Seriously."

Waking up to aching shoulders and a numb bum, Amelie had almost forgotten where she was when she opened her eyes to what she could only assume was the morning of her second day in Impel Down.

Almost.

Her companions were already awake and watching when she came round, although it was hard to tell if either of them had actually slept at all. No one said a word, but the quiet as she felt their eyes on her was a little too much for her groggy mind to bear so soon after waking up so, in order to break that awkward first-morning-together silence, Amelie had asked about breakfast. The reply had been no less than what she had expected; the upkeep of monsters was hardly going to be high on the guards' list of priorities, but that hadn't stopped Amelie from hoping as she tried to ignore the sickening tightness in her stomach. Sleeping had offered her a short reprieve from her hunger, but now that she was awake the pain had come clawing back in full force.  
"When did you last eat?" It was Jinbe that asked, surprising Amelie at the concern she thought she'd heard in his voice, but the Fishman wasn't blind to her suffering. Though she hadn't made any complaints of hunger since she'd arrived, both he and Ace had noticed Amelie's comment about breakfast for what it was, no matter how nonchalantly she might have said it. The front she was putting up despite the obvious grumbling of her stomach was commendable, but it would have been better had she not said anything. Asking about food, no matter how innocent she had believed her intentions to be, had shown her vulnerability. Amelie had realised this as soon as the words left her mouth, but she had never gone this long without eating before and dying of starvation was not on her list of things to do.  
"The day before I got caught," was Amelie's reply. "It was a quick food raid of someone's house before going back into hiding."  
"Did you kill them?"  
"Always expecting the worst of me, eh Jinbe?" she replied, shaking her head in mock disappointment at his suspicions. "Sorry to disappoint, but I didn't kill anyone. Since they were sleeping, I had no reason to."  
"Would you have killed them if they weren't?"  
Amelie turned to look at Ace as he spoke, immediately regretting it as their eyes met. Jinbe always looked at her with hostility and suspicion, something that Amelie was very used to and it was something that she could handle. It was what came with being the Pirate Assassin, and those looks had been following her for as long as she could remember, but she didn't see any of that in Ace's eyes as he looked at her. Instead, he seemed to be trying to see straight through her, as if he was trying to understand what she was rather than immediately hating her for it, and she felt extremely uncomfortable under his inquisitive gaze. She didn't want him to understand. She didn't _need_ him to understand. Her life was going to end very soon and what he thought of her didn't matter.  
"I would have killed them if they'd gotten in my way."  
"You would have killed them over food?"  
"Food is survival. I would have killed them to survive."  
"Surely if it came to that you could just move on to another house."  
"That's inefficient. I had to get back into hiding as soon as possible so there was only time for one stop." Amelie forced herself to continue holding Ace's gaze, his brow furrowed as his eyes searched hers. She was putting up a front, of that he was certain. She was hiding behind this killer's façade to protect a heart that had withstood too much pain. Jinbe had said that society had made her what she was, but why? What was it that had set her on this path? A path from which she could not return.

For Ace, he had been taught from an early age that the very fact that he was alive was a sin. Although no one had known who he was, hearing everyone condemn the existence of a child born from the seed of the Pirate King had given him a very negative outlook on his life. Was it good that he was born? It was a question he had often asked himself, wondering why his mother had bothered trying to protect such an abomination. He still wasn't certain of the answer, but through his brothers he had gained the will to live and discover for himself whether it was good to have been brought into this world. Because he had found a family like that, he could live day by day with no regrets and walk a path that would lead him to his answer.  
Amelie hadn't been so lucky. When he looked into her eyes, in her moments of weakness he could see the same self-loathing he once saw in himself, a hatred for her very existence. But, oddly enough, there was still a will to live burning inside of her. A will to show everyone that hers was a life worth living. So why had she chosen the path of a killer? Why choose a path that meant taking the lives of others? What exactly was she trying to prove?

"There's no point trying to understand her Ace." The sound of Jinbe's voice cut across his thoughts and Ace turned to face the Fishman whose eyes were fixed on Amelie. "To understand her you'd need to know the kind of life she's lived."  
Amelie's eyes were on Jinbe now, watching him very closely as he spoke to Ace. "And what kind of life would that be?" She asked.  
"That's not for me to say. Only you can tell that story."  
She could feel Ace watching her and she knew that he was curious, but her past was not something she talked about if it could be avoided. She might not have been able to forget what she'd done, but that didn't mean she had to tell people about it.  
"Perhaps another time. I'm not really in the mood for reminiscing right now."

* * *

The hours ticked by and, without any outside light shining through, the only thing that Amelie had to judge the time of day by was how tired she was feeling, and that was hardly an accurate measure. She was feeling pretty exhausted, but she had been all day, so it could have been any time between evening and the early hours of the morning, though neither of her cellmates looked to be going to sleep any time soon. Food still hadn't been brought down and the aching in her stomach had now reached a point where it was so intense that, coupled with the burning in her shoulders, it was impossible for her to fall asleep. For this, Amelie was grateful, if only because it meant she could escape from her nightmares. The images that haunted her while she slept were not things she was in a hurry to see. Her dreams were not things she was in a rush to revisit. They twisted her memories, tore at her heart, and every dream was another crack in her already fragile armour. She knew she cried in her sleep and Amelie would do anything to avoid such an episode before prying eyes.

The rattling of chains brought Amelie's attention to the fidgeting Fishman opposite her; his massive body struggling against his restraints.  
"There somewhere you need to be, Jinbe?"  
He glared at her, still writhing against the chains. It would seem that her question had not amused him as he offered her only silence as a response.  
"Fine," she said. "Not like I wanted to talk to you anyway." Instead, she turned her attention to Ace who was watching Jinbe's attempts to free himself. "So, Ace. I heard Blackbeard was the one who caught you in exchange for a place as one of the Shichibukai."  
If Jinbe wasn't going to talk, then perhaps Ace would have more to say. Amelie needed to keep her mind occupied with things other than her own misery, and right now conversation was all she had.  
Ace's mood significantly darkened at the mention of his captor and as he turned to look at her, Amelie wondered if maybe she shouldn't have said anything, but it was either his story or hers and she much preferred it to be his.  
"Don't you have anything better to do?"  
"Nope. I did have a deck of cards, but I left it back on the Marine ship when they dropped me off. Though I don't suppose it'd do me much cop unless I learned to deal with my toes."  
Despite himself, Ace couldn't help the smile tugging at the corner of his mouth at Amelie's response. It might have all been a front, but the light-heartedness with which she spoke, and the fact that she could still make jokes in such a dismal situation as theirs, helped lift his heart just a little.  
Maybe it was inappropriate to joke about such things, but Amelie knew that if she didn't joke she would surely cry and, though she would never have admitted it at the time, it did give her a small amount of pleasure to see that tiny smile upon Ace's face.  
"So is Blackbeard a touchy subject?"  
"I don't know. Is your life before the Peg Legs?"  
"Touché."  
After that, silence fell upon the two death row inmates, only the sound of Jinbe's rattling chains to be heard in their three-man cell. Should Ace ask? Should Amelie ask? Neither seemed to want to talk about it, but both were curious to hear their stories. Jinbe stopped his struggling as he watched the two young people carefully eyeing each other, a strange atmosphere having fallen upon them. It was neither awkward nor comfortable, but as they continued to watch each other, trying to figure one and other out, Jinbe noted a slight change in Amelie's demeanour. She was still cautious; still wary of the Whitebeard pirate but, whether she realised it or not, she was beginning to respond to him.

"Will your Captain be looking for you?"  
Ace was the one who broke the silence first.  
"No."  
"How can you be so sure?"  
"Because Romance T. Gilly risks his life for no one," Amelie explained. "If you're not strong enough to survive on your own then you're no crew member of his. I've seen it happen a hundred times."  
"Why would you stay with someone like that if you knew that you'd eventually be left behind?" "Because, however temporary it might have been, he gave me a place to belong."  
At those words, even Jinbe felt a tug on his old heartstrings, but instead of feeling sorry for her it only made him angry at how pathetic she sounded, and knowing the secrets in her past only served to make it worse. "A place to belong? The man used you like a tool!"  
"You think I don't know that?" Amelie snapped, flicking her eyes from Ace to Jinbe. "I know better than anyone what I was to that man. And I knew the moment those Marines caught me on Sabaody that my life was over. I was under no illusions about what I meant to that crew."  
"Sabaody?" Ace started at the mention of the archipelago, the conversation with Garp, his grandfather, coming back to his mind. "You were on Sabaody?"  
"Yes, I was. Why?" The sudden turn in conversation made Amelie hesitate. What did it matter if she was on Sabaody? He was already in prison by that point so what did it matter to him?  
"You didn't happen to run into the Straw Hats, did you?"  
The Straw Hats?  
"No. But I got caught up in the mess their idiot Captain brought upon them, punching that World Noble like that. It's because of him that I'm sitting here with you."  
Despite how annoyed she obviously was at this, Ace was smiling. Not those ghostly smiles that Amelie had seen so far, but a genuine smile that spread across his freckled face. So this was what Fire Fist Ace looked like. There was a mischievous sparkle in his eyes as he grinned, giving off a light so bright that it hurt Amelie to look, and it was at that moment when she realised, for the first time, just how different he was from her.  
"Do you know the Straw Hats?" She asked, wondering what it was she had said that had caused this change in Ace's mood.  
"That idiot Captain, Monkey D. Luffy, is my little brother."  
"Your brother?"  
"Yep."  
His brother. Ace had a brother. Amelie's thoughts immediately went to the empty pocket of her shorts and the item that was no longer in her possession. Would She be mad that it was gone? Amelie thought back to that little house, the sound of screaming kids still ringing in her ears. Would She still be there? No. She'd probably moved by now. There was no reason for her to stay now that Amelie was gone. There was no reason for her to stay in a house that held such bad memories.  
"Is your brother glad you're alive?" The words left her mouth before she could stop them and Amelie felt the heat in her cheeks as she looked away from the two sets of eyes now upon her.  
"What?" He sounded confused and Amelie didn't blame him. How should you respond to such a question?  
"It's nothing. Pretend I never said anything." She silently cursed herself for her weakness as she avoided the eyes she knew were watching her. She could blame the hunger or she could blame how tired she was, but at the end of the day that shouldn't have mattered. If she was going to be strong she had to be strong at all times, not just the occasional few.

* * *

"She said she was arrested on Sabaody."  
Ace moved his eyes across to the Fishman, the woman in question groaning slightly in her sleep having finally drifted off once her stomach had been filled. The Minotaur had been down with plates of food for the odd few prisoners that were getting fed this time around; Amelie had been one of them, wolfing it down as if there was no tomorrow.  
"Yeah. I wondered that too," Ace responded, knowing what was on Jinbe's mind. "Gramps mentioned the incident when he came to see me, but that all happened a few days ago."  
It wasn't that far from Sabaody to Impel Down by Marine ship, so why had Amelie only arrived the day before?  
"Do you think they kept her before bringing her here?" He asked, turning his attention back to the red-head as she slept, his eyes roaming her bare skin in search of signs of damage. The pinkness from the "baptism" had finally faded revealing tanned skin that was covered in scars of all shapes and sizes, but there was nothing fresh to suggest that anything had been done to her between her arrest and her arrival at the prison. But then again, the scars the Marines left could have been mental rather than physical.  
"I think they would definitely have had questions for her," was Jinbe's reply. "From what I know of the Peg Legs, Amelie rarely actually sailed with them, always an island or two ahead in order to deal with the special missions given to her by her Captain."  
"You seem to know quite a bit about this girl, Jinbe."  
"I just know from things I've heard." The truth was, he was always listening out for news of the Pirate Assassin. Despite his initial brush off of the child, he couldn't help the part of him that wondered how she'd turned out. Would she be another Arlong? Or would she find a path that she could be proud of? In the end, he'd been disappointed; she'd let the hate consume her and had become a monster under the control of one of the worst kind of pirates. Then she'd shown up in this cell and he had known at that moment that it was over for her. Another life wasted.

"So they probably wanted the names of these special missions. If the Marines knew those then they could probably catch the rest of the Peg Legs," Ace concluded. But from the loyalty Amelie obviously had for her Captain, he doubted the Marines had gotten anything out of her.

A place to belong. When he thought of the look in her eyes as she'd said those words, even knowing what kind of man he was, it made Ace's blood boil to think of what her Captain was doing now. He probably hadn't spared his crewmate a second thought since she hadn't returned after her mission was completed, and he probably didn't care that she was scheduled for execution in just a few days. How could such a person do those things and still call themselves a captain? This Romance T. Gilly didn't deserve the title he had given himself, nor the crew he had collected and abandoned along the way. Amelie may have been a hardened criminal, but surely she deserved better than that.

Now, even more than before, Ace was curious about the past that Amelie was hiding away. Everyone had things they didn't want others to know, but to make her cling to her life with the Peg Legs like it was all she had , and for her to ask things like 'is your brother glad you're alive?' made Ace wonder just what had happened in her life to make her this way.  
"Jinbe. Was her past really so terrible?"  
"For that you'd have to ask her," Jinbe replied. He only knew what he had been told back in Bloom Town those five years ago, and all he really knew for sure was that society had been cruel in a way that only it could be when faced with one such as Amelie. "But let me ask you this, Ace: how great could the life be of a child who killed their parents?"

* * *

**A/N**

**I've read and reread this chapter I don't know how many times, tweaking it here and there, but I'm still not 100% happy with it. I think it's just one of those chapters. You know the ones, where you really want to get on with writing the next bit but you know you have to write this inbetweeny bit even though it feels like pulling teeth. Anway, it's done. I've wittled enough so here it is. Now I can get on with the bit I've been looking forward to writing.**


	3. Chapter 3

-The Third Day-

_"How great could the life be of a child who killed their parents?"_

It was raining. The drops hammering down on the old roof tiles, clattering against the windows as a man and his daughter stood outside the master bedroom of the house. There were no sounds coming from inside the room. There should have been. There should have been something. Cries of pain. Words of encouragement from the doctor. Maybe even the sound of something falling to the floor. Anything. But there was nothing, only the sound of the rain.  
"Papa, is everything alright in there?" The girl asked, gazing up at the red-haired man as she clutched onto his shirt. But there came no reply. The man simply continued to stare at the door in silence, his wife lying just on the other side. Something was wrong. It had been too long since he'd heard her voice and he could feel the dread in his bones. Something was wrong.  
He should have been in that room with her, holding her hand while she went through this, but this time she had told him no. For reasons he didn't know, his wife had made him wait outside with their daughter until the entire process was over.

The sound of a baby crying broke through the silence and a few moments later the door opened to reveal the doctor holding a small bundle in his arms.  
"It's a healthy baby girl," he said, holding out the bundle to the man, but Benjamin Garfagni wasn't looking at him. He was staring passed his shoulders to the bed where his wife lay, his eyes wide at the sight that met them. Blood. There was so much blood.  
"Sir." The doctor tried to draw his attention back to the child in his arms, but Benjamin was already entering the room, the baby the last thing on his mind.  
"Papa!"  
"Stay there, Josephine," he called out to his daughter. The scene before him was not something a child should ever have to see of their parent.  
His wife, his beautiful Rose, was staring up at him with empty eyes, her skin as pale as the white sheets on which she lay. Around her legs a pool of blood was soaking through the bedding, staining the very memories he held of her.  
It was on this bed that she had given birth to their first child, his darling Josephine, bringing such joy into their lives that he could not describe. And now, here she lay, lifeless , after her murderer had been ripped from her womb, for he knew she had died before the child had been born. That was what the silence had meant.  
Reaching out a shaking hand he closed Rose's eyes, so it would seem that she was merely sleeping, before leaning down to place one last kiss upon her lips. "Goodbye, my love." Even as his tears blinded him, Benjamin felt strangely calm as he walked away from his wife, stopping outside the bedroom where the doctor and Josephine were still standing. Taking the teenager in his arms he placed a kiss atop her head and spoke a few words before heading for the stairs.  
"You're going have to take care of things for a while," he said. "Be strong while Papa's away."  
Those were the last words her father ever said to her. As she cradled the new born baby in his place, as she helped the doctor clean up the mess in the bedroom and arranged the funeral for her mother, that man made his way to the coast and threw himself from the topmost cliff into the stormy waters below.

"It's okay," Josephine cooed as the bundle in her arms began to cry. "I'm here for you now." She looked down into watery blue eyes, a thick head of red hair sticking out from beneath the blanket, and held back her own tears as the weight of her situation crushed her heart.  
"I think I'll call you Amelie. Mama always really liked that name."

_"I might not have done it with my own hands, but it was because of me that both my parents died. Grief does funny things to some people. The village folk, having loved both my parents dearly, could have gone two ways after hearing of their deaths. They could have been overjoyed that I had survived and clung to me and my sister as all they had left of Benjamin and Rose Garfagni. Or they could blame their deaths on this little baby who didn't even understand the situation she was in. They could blame this child and turn their grief into hate in order to make themselves feel a little better. You can probably guess which they did. As far as they were concerned I might as well have took a knife to my mother and pushed my father from that cliff. They couldn't have hated me anymore than they already did."_

At just 15 years old, Josephine Garfagni didn't know the first thing about taking care of a baby. She had gone to family friends asking for help, but no one would let her passed their front door with 'that thing' hanging round her neck. Everyone was taking their anger at her parents' death out on a baby who didn't even understand her own name yet, leaving her to learn parenting from books and observing other mothers out and about in the streets.  
If she was completely honest, there were times when she could have quite happily left that child on the side of the road and gone on with her life as an only orphan teenager. A part of her hated the existence of that little human that had taken her parents away from her. She hated that she was still breathing when they weren't. But then she would remember how her mother had protected the life of this baby and she would cast those thoughts away.  
That moment when she had seen her mother's lifeless body, Josephine had known. Rose Garfagni had kept her husband out of that room as she went into labour because she had known that something was wrong. Somehow she had known that only one of them was going to survive and she had kept her husband out to ensure that it was the baby that came out breathing. Benjamin would have fought to save his wife's life at the cost of their child's and Josephine knew that her mother would not have wanted that. So, despite how much she hated this child (and her father) for leaving her alone in the world, she battled through because of her mother. She protected little Amelie because of her mother, and fought through her loneliness to bring up the child her mother had died to keep.

_"My sister was everything to me. She still is. Even though I know she has every reason to hate me, she still protected me right until the very end. Even when she was married and had kids of her own, she could have kicked me out onto the streets, but she held me close through everything. Even when I did something unforgivable."_

12 years passed and Amelie had fought through the hatred, collecting scars on her skin and on her heart, as she tried to live up to her sister's kindness. The people didn't make it easy for her. She was often refused service at the local shops, and even when she was served the villagers spoke as little and as rudely as possible, and avoided physical contact as if she had something contagious.  
The only thing that made all this bearable was knowing that when she went home her sister would be waiting for her with her little nieces and nephew. At the ages of 5, 3, and 1, her sister's children had no idea what their aunty had done as a baby. They had never known their mother's parents so it didn't matter to them that they only had the one set of grandparents from their father's side. All that mattered was that Aunty Amelie always played with them when they wanted and that she always had a smile for them. Coming home to their tiny, smiling faces lifted Amelie's heart more than they would ever know, and she prayed that they would never know such pain as she and her sister had known.

One afternoon, Josephine had sent her sister out for a few things from the shops, not expecting her to be back for quite some time. She knew how the villagers treated Amelie, so she knew that sometimes Amelie would have to travel out of her way, though she had never told her. And though she could have gone herself to save Amelie the trouble, she liked having her out of the house. In those moments when she was gone Josephine wasn't constantly reminded of that day 12 years ago. When Amelie was gone she wasn't constantly reminded of the father that had left her alone with a baby that no one wanted. In those moments she hated herself for being glad her little sister was gone, but she couldn't help the relief she felt in her heart.  
On this particular day, Amelie was gone for an unusually long length of time. Josephine had put her children to bed and the sun had begun to set before Amelie eventually returned home. She heard her sister walk through the house and straight into the kitchen without so much as a word to let Josephine know that she was home. When she heard the taps running, Josephine decided to investigate and see just what had taken Amelie so long, but what she saw stopped her in her tracks.  
Standing at the sink, her clothes covered in blood, Amelie was scrubbing at her hands so hard it was as if she was trying to wash away her very skin.  
"Amelie!"  
Rushing forward, Josephine went to grab her sister only for her to shrug out of her grasp. Now she was up close she could see the tear tracks on her sister's face, paving their way through the dirt and blood on her cheeks.  
"Amelie! What happened? Why are you covered in blood?"  
But Amelie continued to scrub at her hands and arms even though the blood covering them had long since been washed away.  
"Amelie, stop!" Josephine grabbed her sister's shoulders and spun her around so she was looking into her eyes. Amelie's bottom lip was trembling from the effort of trying to stop the tears, but as soon as she saw her sister's face she broke. Josephine followed as Amelie collapsed to the floor, the sobs rolling out of her as she pulled at her clothes.  
"I-I killed him," she cried, her tears falling hot and fast from her eyes. "He- He- He started yelling at me and I just…"  
Josephine wasn't sure what to say as she listened to her sister's sobbing, Amelie's words barely registering in her ears as she held onto her.  
"I didn't mean to," she wept. "I didn't mean to."

**... ... ... ... **

Amelie dragged her feet along the ground, her heart heavy as she headed back into the village with her bagful of groceries. Today she had been forced to head to the outskirts for her shopping, and even then the people in the shops hadn't been overly fond of serving her.  
Amelie understood that the people of the village had loved her parents very much. She understood they were angry at the unfairness of the world, taking Benjamin and Rose before they were ready, but she couldn't understand how they could hate her so much when all she'd done was exist.  
"Is it so bad that I'm alive?"  
Walking through the forest that led to the village centre, Amelie was stopped in her tracks by a stone colliding with the side of her head. Looking round she saw a young boy, not much older than herself, hiding amongst the trees, another stone ready in his hand.  
"What did you do that for?" She asked, rubbing her head as she glared at him, but that didn't stop him. The second stone smacked her right in the middle of her forehead and she felt the tears burn in her eyes. "Stop it!"  
When he saw that she was crying the boy came out of his hiding place, a satisfied smirk on his little face. "Serves you right," he said, crossing his arms over his chest. "My mum says you're a bad person who should never have been born."  
"Your mum's wrong!" Amelie cried, her head beginning to pound. "I never did anything wrong."  
"She says it's your fault her friends are dead. That it were you who killed 'em."  
"Liar! I never killed anybody. They just died!" The tears were blinding her, but the more she tried to wipe them away the faster they fell. Why was this boy here? What did he mean by saying these things to her?  
"No! You killed them! Even my dad says so! Everyone in the village knows what you did so why don't you just hurry up and die!" He picked up another stone as he yelled at her, but just as he was about to throw it she lunged at him.  
_Just hurry up and die.  
_Rage fuelling her tiny body, Amelie threw herself at the boy, his words ringing in her ears as she knocked him to the ground. The stone was still gripped in his hand, but she never left him an opening to use it. Before he knew what was happening Amelie was pounding her fists into his face, one after the other, deaf to his cries as he begged her to stop.  
"I. Never. Killed. Anyone!" She said, forcing out her words with every punch. "It wasn't me." Amelie couldn't see the blood for the tears in her eyes, and neither did she notice the moment the boy fell silent, his begging ending along with his life.  
By the time she realised it was already too late. Wiping her face with her sleeve, she looked down into his face, barely recognising him as the boy that had just been standing in front of her.  
"Hey," she called out, her voice trembling. "Hey." She prodded his chest. "Say something."  
But there was only silence.  
Clambering to her feet, Amelie looked down at the mess she had made and let out a strangled cry when she realised what she'd done. She'd killed him. Blinded by her anger and her hatred for the village she had beaten this boy to death, becoming exactly that which she had tried so hard to prove she wasn't. A murderer.  
Panicking, she went to grab the bag of groceries that had fallen to the ground when she attacked him, meaning to simply run away and pretend it never happened. But what if people found him? What if they found him and immediately knew that it was her? No. That couldn't happen. Her sister would be in trouble as well if she was ever found out.  
With these thoughts in her mind, Amelie left the groceries where they were and began, instead, to drag the boy's body into the trees and off of the path. Using her hands, stones, branches, anything she could find, Amelie began to dig a hole in the soft ground where she could bury him so that no one would find him.  
Before she left, ripping one of her sleeves and using it to fasten two branches together, Amelie made a small cross which she stuck in the ground by the grave. Perhaps not a smart thing to do if she didn't want people to find it, but she couldn't just leave him buried so unceremoniously in the middle of a forest. The guilt that was eating away at her wouldn't allow her to simply leave, so she left a marker as a sign that she was sorry before rushing home.

**... ... ... ... **

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."  
That was all Amelie kept saying as Josephine scrubbed at her sister's body, the hot water from the shower washing all the blood and grime down the drain and away from them. Amelie's blood stained clothes were in a pile on the floor by the back door, ready to go on a bonfire that Josephine would have to quickly throw together. By the time she was done there would be no signs that anything was ever wrong. She was glad that her husband was away on business for the weekend, because she wasn't sure how she would have explained this to him. This way she could protect her sister without incriminating him as well.  
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."  
"It's okay," Josephine cooed as the body in her arms continued to tremble despite the heat from the water. "I'm here for you." Pulling her head to her chest, Josephine felt for the 12 year old. No child should ever have to go through what Amelie had been through. Ever. "I'll protect you."

_"Then, 3 years later I left. I couldn't stand the way Josephine looked at me after that. I knew she wished, just like everyone else, that I had died and my mother had lived. In the end it was too much for me so I packed what little things I had and headed to the next town. A lovely little place called Bloom Town. It was there that I discovered my knack with a blade and I learned how to survive alone on the streets. After killing that boy, it was surprising how easy it was to take someone else's life. In the end I thought, if they're going to call me a murderer regardless of what I do then maybe I should just give them a reason.  
"I became quite famous while I was there, actually. No one knew my name or what I looked like, at least not until Jinbe here, but people talk and stories began to go around about a monster from the village over that had killed her parents. A monster that was here to terrorise the good people of Bloom Town having had her way with her village. Quite amusing to say the least.  
"But anyway, 3 months after I arrived in Bloom Town someone got clever and shot me. Only in the leg, mind you, but it still hurt like a bitch. I knew after that it'd only be a matter of time before I was discovered so I dragged myself to the harbour and boarded the first ship I saw, which just so happened to be the Peg Legs'. And the rest is, as they say, history."_

* * *

Both Ace and Jinbe sat in silence as Amelie regaled them with her story, neither able to summon the right words for the moment. It wasn't the tale Ace had been expecting to hear. When Jinbe had said that she'd killed her parents Ace had been ready to hear the tale of a killer, not the story of a child labelled 'murderer' from the minute she was born. But now he understood how society had turned her into what she was. They called her murderer so she became one. They hated the very air she breathed so she lived just to spite them. She had clung to the Peg Legs because they had accepted her for what she was. Even her sister had wished her dead. But Romance T. Gilly had given her a purpose for her existence, and now Ace understood her loyalty.  
"Do you ever regret leaving?"  
"I don't know. Do you ever regret going after Blackbeard?"  
He should have expected that reply. If she was going to use it to avoid giving him straight answers, maybe Ace shouldn't have told her about his search for Blackbeard, but he had wanted her to tell her tale and it was only fair that he told her what she wanted to know first. Now, after hearing Amelie's past, it seemed like a poor trade, but she had told it anyway despite yesterday's reluctance.

It was easier for him to see it now, stronger than it had been yesterday or the day before. Her wall was coming down and her darkness was starting to shine through. Her hate, her guilt, her pain. Ace could see it all in her eyes and, though she never shed a single tear in her waking hours, he could see her crying on the inside. She had been holding it all in for so long, but Impel Down had a way of bringing out the parts of you that you didn't want others to see. It made sure you were broken before you left. _If_ you left.

* * *

It was hurting. Speaking her memories aloud like that hurt more than she thought it would. She wasn't even sure why she had bothered telling them anyway. Telling Ace. She had known what he was after when he suddenly started to tell her about his search for Blackbeard and the reason he had been hunting him. She had listened all the same, her ears eager to hear of the man who had brought down _the _Fire Fist Ace, but she had had no intention of giving him what he wanted. She didn't want to talk about it and he wasn't going to make her, so when the words began to tumble from her mouth she had been as surprised as the rest of them.  
_I'm getting weak._  
Amelie could feel it. She could feel the cracks in her armour growing bigger by the second, her weakness slipping through at the first chance it got. She wanted to blame it on the stone walls around her. She wanted to blame the chains on her wrists and ankles. But she knew that wasn't it. That wasn't it at all.  
It was those eyes. The way he looked at her, challenging her walls, as he asked his questions with such sincere curiosity she couldn't refuse an answer. Sure, she might not have always given him straight answers, but she did give them to him.  
Maybe it was the shadow of self-hatred she saw in him, or the flecks of warmth that still shone through despite his situation. Maybe she was just lonely and it had been nice to have someone her own age to talk to. Whatever it was, Amelie knew that Ace was the reason, worming his way in through the gaps, weakening the defence she had worked years to build. Perhaps, had they met under different circumstances, he could have been - dare she say it?- a friend.  
She hadn't had much experience in the world of friendship, but Amelie had this feeling that it was something that followed Ace wherever he went and now he was dragging her with him.

* * *

**A/N**

**This chapter was written a lot quicker than I thought it would be, but once I started it just came rolling out. **

**This will probably be it for this story for a little while as I have been neglecting my other story and I want to get at least a couple of chapters of that out before I start updating this again.**

**Anyway, thanks for reading so far x**


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